Beyond medals: athletes in pursuit of the Olympic spirit

If it were Einstein's theory of relativity or Newton's second law of motion, perhaps he could explain it fully. Indeed, just down the Charles River at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Steven Tucker was trained as a physicist.

But within the confines of force = mass x acceleration, there are no words to describe how it feels to accelerate - to lean into your oars and nod forward toward the finish line. In the breadth of science, there are no formulas to explain why a physicist in his mid-30s would put aside a promising career to rise with the sun six days a week to participate in an event that will bring him neither fame nor money - and perhaps not even a medal.

It is the pursuit of the Olympian, and like all things idealistic, it must have a certain illogic when gauged by the workaday world. Yes, there are the swimmers and gymnasts who stand to become national heroes, as well as sprinters who would seemingly inject their bodies with Jell-O if it would make them run faster. But they are not the marrow of these Games.

The true story of the Olympics is in the telling - told in the letter from a Nebraska grandmother who pushes a wrestler to work harder this day than he did the last. Told in the schedule of a synchronized swimmer who, in hopes of mastering a gold-medal routine, practices 10 hours a day and sees her boyfriend only once a week. And it is told in Tucker's urge to touch the fringes of perfection with every stroke - a Lycra-suited maestro measuring every beat with metronomic precision.

"I'm going to the Games to rediscover the Olympic ideal," says John Lucas, an Olympic historian who has attended every summer Games since 1960. "It's everywhere, but because it's not accompanied by noise and negative drama, it's not noticed."

"Noise" is not a word easily attached to Tucker. His small stature and measured words bespeak a quiet thoughtfulness. This is a man who finished his undergraduate work at one of the most renowned technical universities in three years. A man who invented an onboard device to calculate data about his speed and stroke, then relay it to a Palm Pilot.

He acknowledges that rowing is, at least in part, a grand lab experiment that has spilled out onto the waters of the Charles. "My approach to understanding rowing technique is empirical," he writes in an e-mail. "I want to collect a lot of data quantifying how the seat position, oar strain, boat speed, etc., change during the rowing stroke among different rowers and try to find what is common to fast rowers."

But to stop there would be to miss the entirety of the man. While his mind unravels lengths of water with a scientific clarity, his desire is primal: Rowing "is satisfying at a very low, reptilian level, without any contemplation or reflection required."

The upper floor of the house he bought in Medford, Mass., in 1993 was occupied by pigeons and strewn with newspapers from 1972, left there by a widow who lived on the ground level for 25 years. Today, he's still renovating.

His trip to the Olympics in the men's twos event is a work in progress as well. He has been once before - in 2000 - and he won't rule out a bid for Beijing in 2008. Ask him what motivates him to keep his professional life on hold, working at Home Depot to make ends meet, and his answer is typically understated. "I want to be able to row very well," says Tucker after several hours' practice one recent morning.

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